The present invention relates to a layout structure of a driving device for a vehicle in which a passenger compartment is separated by a dash panel from an engine room.
The following structure is known as an example of the above-described layout structure of a driving device for a vehicle (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 6-239147). Namely, as shown in FIG. 29, that is a conventional structure of a FR (front-engine rear-drive) type, in which there are provided a passenger compartment 191 which is separated by a dash panel 192 from an engine room 193 and located in front of the passenger compartment 191 and rear wheels (not shown) are driven by an engine 194 disposed in a longitudinal direction of the vehicle in the engine room 193. Herein, reference numerals 195, 196 and 197 denote a pair of front side frame, a cooler condenser and a radiator, respectively.
This conventional structure has a problem that since the engine 194 having its heavy weight is disposed in the engine room 193 which is located forward away from a center of the vehicle, its yaw inertia moment is relatively large.
Then, in order to improve maneuverability of the vehicle by reducing the yaw inertia moment, there may be an idea of use of, for example, a compact structure of air conditioning unit (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2001-105833) or a film-dumper type of air conditioning unit (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 10-324141).
These air conditioning units enable the engine located forward to be moved back to some extent toward the center of the vehicle, so that the maneuverability of the vehicle can be improved to certain degree due to a reduced yaw inertia moment.
In order to reduce the yaw inertia moment further to improve the maneuverability of the vehicle more, it would be necessary to make the engine more compact or to provide a further moved-back engine layout. However, there is a limit in compactness of the engine, thus it may be desired to move the engine back further so that the engine could be located as near the center of the vehicle as possible.
Meanwhile, there has been invented an air conditioning device for a vehicle, in which an auto air conditioner is disposed behind a dash panel in a front portion of the vehicle, whereas a rear cooler unit is disposed in a back portion of the vehicle (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 5-193337). However, since it still falls within a conventional air conditioning device, this device could not provide the above-described further moved-back engine layout.
Further, there has been invented a structure, in which a cowl box is provided above a dash lower panel so as to extend in a width direction of a vehicle and an air conditioning unit is disposed behind the above-described dash lower panel (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 8-58431). However, since this is just a structure showing conventional cowl box and air conditioning unit, this structure could not provide the above-described further moved-back engine layout either.